The Island Queen

“It could be made pritty enough without seaweed,” said Binney, “an’ it’s my notion that the women-folk would be best at makin’ of it.”

“Right, Joe, right, so, if you have no objection, we will leave it to them,” said Dominick, “and now as to the ceremonial?”

“A pursession,” suggested Joe Binney.

“Just so,” said Hugh Morris, “the very thing as was in my mind.”

“And a throne,” cried Malone, “there couldn’t be a proper quane widout a throne, you know. The carpenter can make that, anyhow, for there’s wood galore on the island—red, black, an’ white. Yis, we must have a grand throne, cut, an’ carved, an’ mounted high, so as she’ll have two or three steps to climb up to it.”

In regard to the procession and the throne there was considerable difference of opinion, but difficulties were got over and smoothed down at last by the tact and urbanity of Dominick, to whom, finally, the whole question of the coronation was committed. Thus it frequently happens among men. In the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom enough, usually, to guide in the selection of the fittest man to take the helm in all important affairs.

And that reminds us that it is high time to terminate this long digression, and guide our readers back to the beginning of the chapter, where we stated that the important day had at last arrived.

Happily, in those highly favoured climes weather has not usually to be taken much into account. The sun arose out of the ocean’s breast with the same unclouded beauty that had marked his rise every morning for a week previously, and would probably mark it for a week to come. The sweet scents of the wooded heights floated down on the silver strand; the sharks ruffled the surface of the lagoon with their black fins, the birds hopped or flew from palm-tree to mimosa-bush, and the waterfowl went about according to taste on lazy or whistling wings, intent on daily business, much as though nothing unusual were “in the air.”

But it was otherwise with the human family on Big Island. Unwonted excitement was visible on almost every face. Bustle was in every action. Preparations were going on all round, and, as some members of the community were bent on giving other members a surprise, there was more or less of secrecy and consequent mystery in the behaviour of every one.

By breakfast-time little Mrs Nobbs, the blacksmith’s laughter-loving wife, had nearly laughed herself into fits of delight at the crown, which she assisted Mrs Welsh and the widow Lynch to fabricate. The last had devised it, Mrs Welsh had built it in the rough, and Mrs Nobbs had finished it off with the pretty little wreath of red and white branching coral that formed its apex. Apart from taste it was a stupendous erection.

“But don’t you think that it’s too big and heavy?” cried Mrs Nobbs, with a shrieking giggle and clapping of her hands, as she ran back to have a distant view of it.

“Pooh!” exclaimed Mrs Lynch contemptuously, “too heavy? No, it’s nothin’, my dear, to what the kings an’ quanes of Munster wore.”

“But Miss Pauline is neither a king nor a queen of Munster, an’ I do think it’s a bit over-heavy,” objected Mrs Welsh, as she lifted the structure with difficulty.

“Well, ye might take off the wreath,” was the widow’s reply.

Mrs Nobbs removed the only part of the erection that was really pretty, but still it was pronounced by Mrs Welsh to be too heavy, especially for the fair and delicate brows of Pauline Rigonda.

While they were thus engaged Dr Marsh entered the hut, where, for the sake of secrecy, the crown had been prepared, but Dr Marsh was a privileged man, besides he was there professionally; little Brown-eyes was sick—not seriously, but sufficiently so to warrant medical intervention.

“Well, what have we here, ladies?” said the doctor blandly, “part of the throne, eh?”

“Sure it is, in a sort of way, for it’s the crown,” answered Mrs Lynch, “an’ they think it’s over-heavy.”

“Not at all; by no means,” cried the doctor heartily. “It’s splendid. Put the wreath on—so. Nothing could be finer. Shall I carry it up for you? The coronation is fixed for noon, you know, so that we may have time to finish off with a grand feast.”

“No, no, doctor dear. Thank ’ee kindly, but we must cover it up, so’s not to let the people see it till the right time.”

“Well, see that you’re not late with it.”

Having caused Brown-eyes to put out her little tongue, and felt her pulse, and nodded his head gravely once or twice without speaking, all of which must have been highly comforting and beneficial to the child, the doctor went out.

Not long afterwards the people began to assemble round the palace, in front of which a wondrous throne had been erected. Down in a dell behind a cliff some fifty men had assembled secretly with the crown on a cushion in their midst. They were headed by Dr Marsh, who had been unanimously elected to place the crown on Pauline’s head. In the palace Pauline was being prepared by Mrs Lynch and Mrs Nobbs for the ceremony.

On the top of a mound close to the palace a band of conspirators was assembled. These conspirators were screened from view by some thick bushes. Otto Rigonda was their ringleader, Teddy Malone and little Buxley formed the rest of the band. Otto had found a dead tree. Its trunk had been hollowed by decay. He and his fellow-conspirators had sawn it off near to the ground, and close to the root they had drilled a touch-hole. This huge piece of ordnance they had loaded with a heavy charge of the ship’s gunpowder. Otto now stood ready with a piece of slow-match at the touch-hole, and another piece, lighted, in hand.

Suddenly, about the hour of noon, Abel Welsh the carpenter, and Nobbs the blacksmith, issued from the palace with two long tin implements. Secretly, for two weeks previously, had these devoted men retired every night to the opposite extremity of Big Island, and frightened into fits the birds and beasts of that region with the sounds they produced in practising on those instruments. Applying the trumpets to their lips, they sent forth a tremendous, though not uniform, blast.

The surrounding crowd, who expected something, but knew not what, replied with a cheer not unmixed with laughter, for the two trumpets, after the manner of asses, had to make some ineffectual preliminary efforts before achieving a full-toned bray. An answering note from the dell, however, repressed the laughter and awoke curiosity. Next moment the doctor appeared carrying the crown, and followed by his fifty men, armed with muskets, rifles, fowling-pieces, and revolvers. Their appearance was so realistic and impressive that the people forgot to cheer. At the same moment the palace door was thrown open, and Dominick led the youthful queen to the foot of the throne.

Poor little Pauline looked so modest and pretty, and even timid, and withal so angelically innocent in the simplicity of her attire, that the people burst into an earnestly enthusiastic shout, and began for the first time to feel that this was no game or play, but a serious reality.

Things had been so arranged that Pina and Dr Marsh reached the foot of the throne together. Then the latter took the pretty coral wreath off the huge crown, and, to widow Lynch’s felt, but not expressed, indignation, placed that on Pauline’s head.

“Pauline Rigonda,” he said in a loud voice, “I have been appointed by the people of this island to crown you, in their name and by their authority, as Queen of Refuge Islands, in the full belief that your innocence and regard for truth and righteousness will be their best guarantee that you will select as your assistants the men whom you think best suited to aid you in the promotion of good government.”

The serious tone of the doctor’s voice, and the genuine shouts of satisfaction from the people, put the poor little queen in such a flutter that nearly all her courage forsook her, and she could scarcely reply. Nevertheless, she had a mind of her own.

“Doctor Marsh, and my dear people,” she said at last, “I—I scarcely know how to reply. You overrate me altogether; but—but, if I rule at all, I will do so by the blessed truths of this book (she held up a Bible); and—and before taking a single step further I appoint as my—my Prime Minister—if I may so call him—Joe Binney.”

For one moment there was the silence of amazement, for neither Dominick nor Dr Marsh knew of Pauline’s intention. Only the widow Lynch had been aware of her resolve. Next moment a hilarious cheer burst from the crowd, and Teddy Malone, from his retreat, shouted, “God bliss the Quane!” which infused hearty laughter into the cheer, whereupon Welsh and Nobbs, thinking the right time had come, sent out of their tin tubes, after a few ineffectual blurts, two terrific brays. Fearing to be too late, one of the armed men let off his piece, which was the signal for a grand feu de joie.

“Now for it,” thought the chief conspirator in the bushes, as he applied his light to the slow-match. He thought nothing more just then, for the slow-match proved to be rather quick, fired the powder at once, and the monster cannon, bursting with a hideous roar into a thousand pieces, blew Otto through the bushes and down the mound, at the foot of which he lay as one dead.

Consternation was on every face. The queen, dropping her crown, sprang to his side, Dr Marsh did the same, but Otto recovered almost immediately.

“That was a stunner!” he said, with a confused look, putting his hand to his head, as they helped him to rise.

Strange to say, he was none the worse of the misadventure, but did his part nobly at the Royal feast that followed.

That night she who had risen with the sun as Pauline Rigonda, laid her fair young head upon the pillow as—the Island Queen.

Chapter Nine.

Shows how they were tormented by an Old Familiar Fiend; How they killed him, and what befell the Queen and Otto while in the Pursuit of Legitimate Pleasure

When the widow Lynch told Pauline that “onaisy is the hid as wears a crown,” she stated a great truth which was borne in upon the poor queen at the very commencement of her reign.

Up to that time Malines had quietly kept possession of the key of the ship’s liquor-room, knowing full well what extreme danger lay in letting men have unrestrained command of strong drink. But when the royal feast referred to in the last chapter was pending, he could not well refuse to issue an allowance of grog. He did so, however, on the understanding that only a small quantity was to be taken for the occasion, and that he should himself open and lock the door for them. He made this stipulation because he knew well enough the men who wanted to drink would break the door open if he refused to give up the key; and his fears were justified, for some of the more mutinous among the men, under the leadership of Jabez Jenkins and Morris, seized the key from the mate when he produced it, carried all the spirit and wine casks to the shore, ferried them over the lagoon to Big Island, and set them up ostentatiously and conspicuously in a row not far from the palace. As this was understood by the people to be in connection with the coronation festivities, no particular notice was taken of it.

But the result soon began to be felt, for after the festivities were over, and most of the settlers had retired to rest, a group of kindred souls gathered round the spirit casks, and went in for what one of them termed a “regular spree.” At first they drank and chatted with moderate noise, but as the fumes of the terrible fire-water mounted to their brains they began to shout and sing, then to quarrel and fight, and, finally, the wonted silence of the night was wildly disturbed by the oaths and fiendish yells and idiotic laughter of maniacs.

“This won’t do,” said Dominick, issuing from his room in the palace, and meeting the doctor.

“I had just come to the same conclusion,” said the latter, “and was about to consult you as to what we should do.”

“Collect some of our best men and put a stop to it,” returned Dominick; “but here comes the prime minister—roused, no doubt, as we have been. What say you, Joe; shall we attempt to quell them?”

“Well, master, that depends. There’s a braw lot on ’em, an’ if they beant far gone, d’ee see, they might gie us a deal o’ trouble. If they be far gone I’d advise ye to let ’em alone; the drink’ll quell ’em soon enough. Arter that we’ll know what to do.”

Just as he spoke a woman was seen rushing frantically towards them. It was little Mrs Nobbs. Poor thing! All her wonted merriment had fled from her comely face, and been supplanted by a look of horror.

“O sirs!” she cried, clasping her hands, and gasping as she spoke, “come, come quick, my John has falled an’ broke his pledge, an’ he’s goin’ to murder some of ’em. I know he’ll do it; he’s got hold o’ the fore-hammer. Oh! come quick!”

They required no urging. Running down to the scene of the orgies, they found that the blacksmith, who had hitherto been considered—and really was—one of the quietest men of the party, was now among the drunkards. He stood in the midst of the rioters, his large frame swaying to and fro, while he held the ponderous fore-hammer threateningly in his hands, and insanity gleamed in his eyes as he glared fiercely at Jabez Jenkins.

On Jabez the liquor had a different effect, his temperament being totally different. He was a rather phlegmatic man, and, having drunk enough to have driven two men like the blacksmith raving mad, he only stood before him with a dull heavy look of stupidity, mingled with an idiotic sneer of defiance.

“Fiend!” shouted Nobbs, gnashing his teeth, “you have got me to do it, and now I’ll smash in your thick skull—I’ll—”

He stopped abruptly for a moment. Joe Binney came up behind and gently laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Come, John, you ain’t agoin’ to do it. You knows you’re not.”

The quiet tone, the gentle yet fearless look, and, above all, the sensible, kindly expression on his friend’s countenance, effectually subdued the blacksmith for a few seconds, but the fury soon returned, though the channel in which it flowed was changed, for Jabez was forgotten, having slunk away.

“Ha!” he shouted, grasping Joe by the hand and arm, “I’ve had it again! You don’t know how it shoots through my veins. I—I’ve tried to break with it, too—tried—tried! D’ee know what it is to try, Joe, to try—try—try till your blood curdles, an’ your marrow boils, and your nerves tingle—but I gained the victory once—I—ha! ha! yes, I took the pledge an’ kep’ it, an’ I’ve bin all right—till to-night. My Mary knows that. She’ll tell you it’s true—for months, and months, and months, and—but I’ll keep it yet!”

He shouted his last words in a tone of fierce defiance, let go his friend, caught up the sledge-hammer, and, whirling it round his head as if it had been a mere toy, turned to rush towards the sea.

But Joe’s strong arm arrested him. Well did he understand the nature of the awful fiend with which the blacksmith was fighting. The scene enacting was, with modifications, somewhat familiar to him, for he had dwelt near a great city where many a comrade had fallen in the same fight, never more to rise in this life.

Joe’s superior strength told for a moment, and he held the struggling madman fast, but before Dominick and the doctor could spring to his aid, Nobbs had burst from him. The brief check, however, seemed to have changed his intentions. Possibly he was affected by some hazy notion that it would be a quicker end to leap headlong from the neighbouring cliffs than to plunge into the sea. At all events, he ran like a deer up towards the woods. A bonfire, round which the revellers had made merry, lay in his path. He went straight through it, scattering the firebrands right and left. No one attempted, no one dared, to stop him, but God put a check in his way. The course he had taken brought him straight up to the row of casks which stood on the other side of the fire, and again his wild mood was changed. With a yell of triumph he brought the sledge-hammer down on one of the casks, drove in the head, and overturned it with the same blow, and the liquor gushing out flowed into the fire, where it went up in a magnificent roar of flame.

The effect on those of the rioters who were not too drunk to understand anything, was to draw forth a series of wild cheers, but high above these rang the triumphant shout of the blacksmith as he gazed at the destruction of his enemy.

By this time all the people in the settlement had turned out, and were looking on in excitement, alarm, or horror, according to temperament. Among them, of course, was the widow Lynch, who was quick to note that events were taking a favourable turn. Springing boldly to the side of the smith, and, in her wild dishevelment of hair and attire, seeming a not unfit companion, she cried—

“Don’t spare them, John! sure there’s another inimy close at yer back.”

Nobbs had sense enough left to observe something of the ludicrous in the woman and her advice. He turned at once, uttered a wildly jovial laugh, and driving in the head of another cask, overturned it. As before, the spirit rushed down the hill and was set ablaze, but the poor madman did not pause now to look at the result. His great enemy was in his power; his spirit was roused. Like one of the fabled heroes of old, he laid about him with his ponderous weapon right and left until every cask was smashed, and every drop of the accursed liquid was rushing down the hillside to the sea, or flaming out its fierce existence in the air.

The people looked on awe-stricken, and in silence, while the madman fought. It was not with the senseless casks or the inanimate liquor that poor John Nobbs waged war that night; it was with a real fiend who, in days gone by, had many a time tripped him up and laid him low, who had nearly crushed the heart of his naturally cheerful little wife, who had ruined his business, broken up his home, alienated his friends, and, finally, driven him into exile—a fiend from whom, for many months, under the influence of “the pledge,” he had been free, and who, he had fondly hoped, was quite dead.

This sudden revival of the old foe, and this unexpected surprise and fall, had roused this strong man’s spirit to its utmost ferocity, and in mighty wrath he plied his hammer like a second Thor. But the very strength and nervous power of the man constituted his weakness when brought under the subtle influence of the old tempter, and it is probable that on his recovery, with nerves shaken, old cravings awakened, and self-respect gone, he would have fallen again and again if God had not made use of the paroxysm of rage to destroy the opportunity and the cause of evil. Nobbs did not know at that time, though he learned it afterwards, that safety from the drink-sin—as from all other sin—lies not in strong-man resolutions, or Temperance pledges, though both are useful aids, but in Jesus, the Saviour from sin.

Some of those who witnessed the wholesale destruction of the liquor would fain have made an effort to prevent it; but, fortunately for the community, most of them were too drunk to care, and the others to interfere; while all were so taken by surprise that the deed was done and the grand conflagration ended before they had realised the full significance of the blacksmith’s act.

When the last head had been driven in, and the last gallon of spirit summarily dismissed by the fire, Nobbs threw up his arms, and, looking upward, gave vent to a cheer which ended in a prolonged cry. For a moment he stood thus, then the hammer dropt from his grasp and he fell back insensible.

Poor little Mrs Nobbs was by his side on her knees in a moment, parting the dark hair from his broad brow, kissing his swart cheeks, and chafing his strong hands.

“O John! darling John!” she cried, “come back—come back—don’t die. You never was hard or cruel to me! Even the drink could not do that. Come back, John!”

Dr Marsh here gently restrained her. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said, as he undid the smith’s necktie; “he’ll be all right presently. Stand back, don’t crowd round him; and you go fetch a cup of water, Mrs Nobbs.”

The reassuring tones and the necessity for action did much to calm the excited woman. Before she had returned with the water her husband had partially recovered. They carried him to his hut, and left him to sleep off the effects, while his poor little wife watched by his side. When left quite alone, she went down on her knees beside him, and prayed for his deliverance with all her heart. Then she rose and sat down with a calm, contented look, muttering, “Yes; He is the hearer and answerer of prayer. He will answer me.”

She might have gone further and said, “He has answered me,” for was not the destruction of the liquor an answer to the petition before it was put up? “Before they call I will answer.”

“Pina,” said Otto the following day, in a tone almost of reproach, during a private audience with the queen, “Pina, how came you to do such an insane thing as choose Joe Binney for your premier? Why didn’t you choose Dom? You know well enough that he’s fifty times cleverer than Joe, and even in the matter of strength, though he’s not so strong, I’m very sure that with his pugilistic powers he could keep order quite as well. Besides, all the people had made up their minds, as a matter of course, that Dom was to be premier, and then—he’s a gentleman.”

“I’m thankful that you are not one of the Privy Council, Otto,” returned Pauline, with a laugh. “You put several questions, and a string of commentary and suggestion in the same breath! Let me answer you in detail, beginning with your last remark. Joe is a gentleman in the highest sense of that word. He is gentle as a lamb by nature, and a man every inch of him. But, more than this, I have noticed that he is a peculiarly wise man, with a calm, pool head on all occasions, and not too ready to use his great physical power in the settlement of disputes. I have observed, too, that when asked for his advice, he usually thinks well before he gives it, and when his advice is followed things almost always go well. Still further, Joe has the thorough confidence of the people, and I am not so sure that Dom has. Besides, if I had appointed Dom, some of the ungenerous among them might have said it was done from mere favouritism. Then as to the people making up their minds that I would appoint Dom,” continued Pauline, “what have I to do with that?”

“Why, everything to do with it,” returned Otto, with a surprised look. “Were you not made queen for the purpose of carrying out their wishes?”

“Certainly not,” answered Pauline; “I was made queen for the purpose of ruling. They told me they had confidence in my judgment, not in my readiness to carry out their wishes. If my judgment, coupled with that of my advisers, does not suit them, it is open to them to unmake me as they made me, and appoint a king or a president, but my judgment I cannot alter.”

Otto listened to these gravely stated opinions of the new queen with increasing astonishment.

“Then, you awful despot,” he said, “do you mean to tell me that you are going to have no regard for the will of the people?”

“No, I don’t mean to tell you that, you presumptuous little subject. I intend always to have the utmost regard for the will of my people, and to weigh it well, and consult with my advisers about it; and when our united judgment says that their will is good, I will act in accordance with it; when we think it bad, I will reject it. I have been made queen to rule, and I mean to rule! That’s fair, isn’t it? If they don’t like my ruling they can dethrone me. That’s also fair, isn’t it? You wouldn’t have me become a mere puppet—a jumping Jack or Jinnie—would you, for the people to pull the string of?”

“Well, I never!” exclaimed Otto, gazing with distended eyes at the soft fair face and at the pretty little innocent mouth that gave vent to these vigorous sentiments. “And what may it be your majesty’s pleasure to do next?”

“It is my pleasure that you, sir, shall go down to the beach and prepare the dinghy for immediate service. I have already directed the prime minister, in conjunction with Dom and our Court physician, to draw up a constitution and code of laws; while they are thus employed you and I will go a-fishing.”

“Very good; I suppose I’m bound to obey, but I thought your majesty preferred to go a-sketching.”